AL-KHALIL, (PIC)– A Jewish settler ran over an 8-year-old Palestinian child near the Ibrahimi mosque in Al-Khalil and sped away.

Nasser Qabaja, the Palestinian Red Crescent’s director of ambulance and emergency, told Quds Press that Baha’a Al-Fakhouri, 8, was hit by a Jewish settler in a speeding car in the Ibrahimi yard affiliated with the Ibrahimi mosque on Monday.

He said that Palestinian ambulance crews carried the child to hospital where his injuries were described as minor. He added that the child would remain under medical observation.

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IOA plans confiscation of more Jerusalem land

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)– The Israeli occupation authorities (IOA) are planning the confiscation of more Jerusalemite land to build a new road serving Jewish settlers.

The local committee for construction and planning announced on Tuesday that a meeting would be held on Wednesday to discuss the expropriation of land in Beit Hanina suburb, north of occupied Jerusalem.

The committee said that the land would be used to construct a new road to serve settlers in Ramat Shlomo settlement, which is planning to build 1500 new housing units.

The Israeli-controlled municipality of Jerusalem has already started building a section of that road called 21 with the help of Moriah Jerusalem Development Company in Shufat suburb, which is adjacent to Beit Hanina suburb.

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IOF displace family in Idna town after razing their home

AL-KHALIL, (PIC)– The Israeli occupation forces (IOF) demolished on Monday afternoon a Palestinian house and bulldozed an agricultural piece of land in Idna town west of Al-Khalil without prior notice.

Mohamed Tamizi, the homeowner, said his house was built with funding from the international Tadamun (solidarity) society and now he and his family have no other place to live in.

He added that the Israeli bulldozers also destroyed his cultivated lands near the house, depriving him of his only source of livelihood.

The Palestinian houses and agricultural lands near the segregation wall in Idna town are continually exposed to destruction.

In a separate incident, the IOF kidnapped ex-detainee Mohamed Adnan Atmiza, 27, from his home in Idna town.

Amiza was an ex-detainee in a Palestinian authority jail and spent more than 20 months in Israeli jails because of his affiliation with the Hamas Movement.

After 203 days spent on hunger strike, Palestinian prisoner Samer Issawi is in “critical condition”.Meanwhile, activists feared that “Issawi might not survive his protest against “Israel’s” abusive prison system.”

Issawi is one of thousands of Palestinian prisoners who have gone on hunger strikes in the past year to denounce “Israel’s” policy of administrative detention and poor life conditions in prisons.

The 33-year old has been refusing food since July 2012, making it one of the longest hunger strikes in the world.

Issawi stopped drinking water and taking vitamins earlier this month, and is refusing medical care. His weight dropped to less than 47 kilograms and he is confined to a wheelchair, suffering from loss of vision, fainting and vomiting blood.

“His heart could stop at any moment,” said Daleen Elshaer, a coordinator for the Free Samer Issawi Campaign.

Elshaer further warned that Issawi’s lawyer and human rights activists were denied accessed to Issawi until Saturday during his most recent hospitalization outside of the infamous Ramlah prison.

Issawi was first arrested in 2002 and sentenced to thirty years in prison over weapons possession and forming a military group. He was released in an October 2011 prisoner swap agreement between the Zionist entity and in which 1,027 mostly-Palestinians were freed in exchange for an “Israeli” soldier captured by the Palestinian resistance in 2006.

He was rearrested on 7 July 2012 and accused of violating the terms of his release by leaving al-Quds. “Israeli” prosecutors are seeking to cancel his amnesty and detain him for 20 years, the remainder of his previous sentence, despite there being no other charges against him.

Another Palestinian hunger striker, Jaafar Ezzedine, recently threatened to follow in Issawi’s footsteps and refuse water unless “Israel” meets his demands, according to the Palestine News Network.

According to prisoners’ rights group Addameer, 4,743 Palestinians were held in “Israeli” prisons as of January, including 178 in administrative detention.

While the campaign to free Issawi has tried to attract broader international attention, Elshaer said they are too often faced with a wall of silence.

“Samer is non-violently resisting a violent occupation, but nobody is willing to talk about him because he is Palestinian,” she said. “Would it take his death for people to cover his story?”

Elshaer added that Issawi’s family has been repeatedly harassed by Israeli forces. Water access was cut to his sister’s house, and his brother’s home was reportedly demolished by the “Israeli” army in early January.

But while Issawi’s health is a big cause for concern for his supporters, they keep faith in him and his cause.

“God is protecting him because he is innocent,” Elshaer asserted.

Meanwhile, Freed detainee Akram Rekhawi stated his 100 day hunger strike was the hardest stage of his nine-year prison sentence.

“I saw death many times a day and it was very painful and “Israeli” doctors treated me very badly,” Rekhawi, 39 said.

Rekhawi, who was released on Thursday, said “Israeli” prison doctors deliberately withheld treatment until prisoners were beyond help.”Yes, they’re offering us medical treatment, but only after they make sure the disease has spread all through our bodies and that there is no hope in treating us.”

A father of eight, Rekhawi suffers from diabetes, asthma and osteoporosis and was held in Ramle prison clinic since his detention in 2004.

Rekhawi spent six years in a cell with Ashraf Abu Threa, who was martyred in January two months after his release from “Israeli” jail. The Palestinian Prisoners Society said “Israeli” authorities were responsible for Abu Threa’s death after neglecting his serious health conditions during his detention.